


Odds in your favor

by withered



Series: Who's been lovin' you good? [16]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Accidental friends to lovers, Bucky and Tony bond over making bets, Bucky gets a Stark mandated AI who gives him cuddles, M/M, Not Clint Barton Friendly, Protective New Avengers, They bond over that too, They're both petty little shits, This is a angst prompt turned fluffy, Yeah I'm putting that out there, not team Cap friendly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-25
Updated: 2018-07-25
Packaged: 2019-06-16 08:21:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,079
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15432900
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/withered/pseuds/withered
Summary: It doesn’t take much to get Tony on board, all Bucky had to do was whisper opportunity in his ear, “Stevie looks pissed.”





	Odds in your favor

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Ossifrage](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ossifrage/gifts), [lovinthepizzalife](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lovinthepizzalife/gifts).



> A fluffier take on the prompt by lovinthepizzalife: In the year 1987, among a world population of 5,055,636,132, only 46,390 people died. Now tell me: how many times do you think seventeen-year-old Tony and upwards thought about that fact after Howard and Maria were unlucky enough to not be one of the 5,055,589,742 who didn't die in a car crash?
> 
> For Kat, because you and I weren't meant for the angst puddle lovinthepizza life threw me into.

With them, there always had to be some kind of bet going.

It hadn’t been intentional, really.

Ever since the Rogues’ arrival back to the United States, and their relocation into the West Wing of the Compound, things had been _tense_ , for a lack of a better word.

The New Avengers were housed in the East Wing, along with Tony, and any amends that the Rogues wanted to make – however poorly intended or executed – were difficult to make. The new family Tony had bought, as Barton liked to say, were vicious in their protection of him.

Leading the charge was Colonel Rhodes, and even on the days when he was in the wheelchair, he struck an intimidating figure. His girlfriend, Captain Danvers, may or may not have been looming at his shoulder, but she’d made it clear that _forcing their hand_ was not recommended when it came to the wide berth and cold shoulder Tony gave them.

Hell, with the way things had been going, Tony hadn’t exchanged even three words with the entirety of the Rogues – and he’d have preferred to keep it that way.

Of course, the media front they were putting up that _the Avengers are united_ required at least some unavoidable interaction, and that was how Tony found himself standing next to James “Bucky” Barnes at a conference.

Polite – if not stilted silence – was what Tony expected, instead, Barnes began lowly, “I bet they’re taking bets that this goes badly.”

“What, you and me standing next to one another?”

He shrugged. “Just you and me in the same room together.”

Tony didn’t disagree. There were a multitude of reasons, after all.

First thing being history and the second being statistics, though some would argue that it was one and the same, really.

See, in the year 1987, among a world population of 5055636132; an estimated 46390 died. Of those 46390, a third was a result of an automotive-related incident.

The long story, everyone’s heard before, but for those who hadn’t, the short story was simply summed up to Howard and Maria Stark; and how they were unlucky enough _not_ to be part of the 46390 who didn’t die in a car crash that year.

The ensuing drama that proceeded that discovery, however, had less to do with Tony being misled about their deaths and more to do with the fact that he’d been lied and used by his childhood hero to protect the man responsible, something the media ate up with abandon.

The Starks weren’t unfamiliar with tragedy; attempted assassinations and kidnapping ploys were plentiful in Tony’s childhood, but a betrayal from _his friend_ , the _Captain America, and for there to be video evidence?_

It was like the Kennedy assassination all over again, except no one expected the physical altercation that followed.

No one could tell if there’d even been a winner.

Tony Stark came back from Siberia with an unattached Winter Soldier arm before undergoing eight hours of intensive surgery.

There’d been speculation, of course, bets drawn, and _simulations_ created.

Some argued that Tony Stark having to go through surgery was a sign of defeat, not that he could be blamed.

It was two Super Soldiers against one angry man in a can, it wasn’t exactly a fair fight.

(And at least in that they were correct.

Tony had built a suit out of junk in a cave after open heart surgery, fought off the group of terrorists that had him imprisoned and tortured for three months, and Tony’s most pressing matter at the immediate end of that debacle was that he was little dehydrated from wandering around in a desert for a few days.

Barnes was going up against a walking tank – an emotionally fragile tank with a unibeam that could cut a mountain in half – and no amount of extensive Super Soldier training would really withstand a suit of armour that had stood toe to toe with a pair of Gods, not to mention the Hulk on full Rage-Monster.

If Tony wanted Barnes dead – he would be.

Both of them were lucky that Tony had the presence of mind not to all-out level the bunker. With perspective enough to process that Barnes was as much a victim to Hydra as Tony was, murdering Barnes would’ve weighed heavily on his conscious.

Not that Rogers ever gave Tony the benefit of the doubt, he did, after all, go straight for the closest thing to a kill-shot he could get without turning French medieval and slicing Tony’s head off his shoulders with the shield.

Tony wondered if his strong resemblance to Howard was the reason Rogers aimed for the arc reactor and not the face.

But that was a graveyard he wasn’t about to dig up.

Nope.)

Point of fact: Tony and Barnes getting along once the Rogues returned with their shiny pardons in hand, was stastically abysmal.

He wouldn’t be blamed for not wanting to be around Barnes, let alone wanting to stand next to him as the press insisted. But the fact that the media were angling from a reaction from Tony, and that Barnes knew it too, well, that changed the game, didn’t it?

“How much do you wanna bet that they’ll lose it if we get along?”

Barnes huffed out a hesitant smile. “Not taking that.” When Tony pouted a little, his companion reminded, “I’m a hundred-year-old POW with no money, what kind of idiot do you take me for?”

“The kind that will take his kicks where he can get them.”

Again, he huffed. “Fair enough.”

“So, whatcha betting?”

With a glance at the corner of his eye, Tony took in the laser eyed focus that Barnes was scanning the crowd with before he began, “I bet if we smile at each other they’ll be too busy taking pictures, and tomorrow’s papers are just going to be speculation about how we get along so well.”

“I bet if we do that, they’ll be internet kids _shipping_ us by tonight.”

His brow lifted. “Colour me impressed, you’re Meta, Barnes, I like that.”

“Stakes?”

It was Tony’s turn to huff out a smile. “Next time you come down to the lab for your maintenance check, you leave your guard dog.”

Rogers ears turned blood red despite being on the opposite end of the room.

Barnes decided, “You come for breakfast in the West Wing tomorrow.”

“You’re on.”

They’d both won, in the end.

Friday had easily gotten hold of the pictures and the speculation articles as soon as they were uploaded onto a computer, and Barnes had texted him a link of a Tumblr blog labelled _StarBar_ a few minutes later with a message attached: _How do you like your eggs?_

Well played, Tony thought before petulantly replying, _StarBar is an awful couple’s name._

The breakfast came before the arm-maintenance, and it didn’t go anywhere how Tony thought it would.

Rhodey had wanted to join, but he had a morning meeting that couldn’t be avoided with the Accords Council, and Carol, as the lead Avenger, had to attend as well. Pepper was still on her honeymoon with Happy, but sent Friday detailed instructions on who to contact in the legal department to get the Rogues booted out toot suite if Tony’s visit was anything less than uncomfortable.  Hope, on the other hand, deemed the whole thing _the bed Tony made_ , and refused to lie in it with him (“Saying it like that is incestuous and I hate you for even suggesting I do that with you.”)

Tony wished one of them was able to go with him because he couldn’t quite believe it.

For one thing, Barnes seemed to have gone all out, the counter was set up like a buffet line: there was fruit, juice, bread, eggs, hash browns, bacon, sausages, pancakes, muesli; hell, Barnes even had a plate made up for him with a strip of bacon grinning at him from the plate along with the two eggs that acted as the eyes and – _okay, that’s fucking adorable._

“Eat,” Tony was instructed in a low drawl.

He blinked, large and doe-eyed, slowly remembering that they weren’t alone.

The rest of the Rogues were assembled at the dining table which they could see from at least thirty metres away from the kitchen, looking worse for wear in front of their far less tantalizing breakfasts in the forms of bowls of oatmeal, dry toast and soggy cereals.

This was the weirdest tableau Tony had ever taken part in; him, eating like a king, and them, the forgotten castaways with their sad orphan meals.

Already, Tony began to feel the press of irritation in his skin, his mind wanting to get a running start on _How dare you try and make me feel bad for you fuckers after all I did to get you back, even after the shit you put me through?_

All up until Barnes murmured opportunity in his ear, “Stevie looks pissed.”

And Tony being a little shit with no sense of self-control, fell for it – hook, line and sinker. “Oh… _oh, god, I hate you.”_

“You’ll get over it,” Barnes decreed, deadpan.

They ate in silence until, “I bet Rogers will give you a speech about how awful I am.”

“I get that speech every day, try harder,” Barnes declared, digging into his own food beside Tony at the counter.

“I bet one of them warns you that I’m trying to seduce you.”

He could practically feel Barnes’ brow raise in question. “Even though I invited you?”

“You heard me,” Tony replied, unyielding.

“I bet one of them thinks I’m trying to get into your good graces for nefarious purposes.”

“Considering there are two former SHIELD agents sitting over there, I think you’re the one playing it safe now.”

“Call it trust,” Barnes allowed.

“I’d call it a mistake,” Tony snickered, “but since you’re being generous, I’ll bite. When I’m right, you get rid of the hobo chic look you’ve got going on.”

Barnes’ scepticism was practically physical considering he paused bodily and turned slightly to outright look Tony in the eye.

“What?” the engineer asked, “I’m not getting shipped with a Super Soldier that looks like a homeless college student.”

He rolled his eyes, though Tony didn’t miss the twitch at the man’s lips. “Fine, and when I’m right, you call me by name.”

“James?”

“Bucky.”

“Ew,” Tony declared, squinting at him, “I was nice to you.”

“Your mistake,” it was his turn to snicker, and reluctantly, Tony couldn’t help but shake his head in fond exasperation.

“You’re on.”

Of course, they’d both won that one too, Barton had even taken the opportunity to hand them both their wins in a single conversation.

And if Tony huffed in annoyance, and Barton looked pleased for wrongfully thinking that it was him responsible for annoying Tony – well, he figured he could spare the recently divorced archer a little bit of mercy. Even if Barton didn’t see it for what it was and continued to _push_ Tony’s patience like it wasn’t razor thin already.

 “It’s just a training simulation Stark, _don’t break your back over it_.”

In the same hour that Barton gave Tony and Bucky a reason to interact outside of their required roles as Avengers, he did it again when Bucky issued the next bet over the comms: “I bet I can make Barton do a flip.”

“Oh my god, I think I love you.”

“We’re already at the “Love” stage, darlin’?”

Tony chuckled despite himself. “Baby, we can be on any stage you want if you can pull through.”

“Any takers?”

“Even if I want you to win?”

“Careful, doll, I’ll think you don’t have any faith in me,” he drawled, the twang of his Brooklyn accent making Tony snort.

 “Fine, I bet you can’t do it without Carol slapping you with a disciplinary too.”

Over the comms, Bucky hummed. “I can swing it. Stakes?”

“A token of my gratitude, take it or leave it.”

“You're on,” he declared after a momentary pause to think it through, before a shot went off.

Unfortunately for Bucky, Carol had eyes at the back of her head. Even if, later that day, she’d casually given Barton an eight out of ten, “based purely on form, though Barnes get’s a nine and a half – the angle was impressive”.

Fortunately for Bucky, winning score or not, Tony was nothing if not magnanimous, and Bucky was greeted with a mostly synthetic-based AI named Eris.

_She’s an Excitable-Royal-Icarus-Simulator; or in short, the story of why I shouldn’t be allowed to keep things alive because now that she’s “conscious”, she’s a spoilt brat. I fly too close to the sun with learning-AIs, honestly, but never fear, her wings aren’t made of wax._

To make Eris’ form a black kitten with little bat wings, reminiscent of the “Toothless” dragon that Peter constantly squealed over, was only because a normal cat or dog was _so_ _2008._ That Eris, like Toothless, had a prosthetic attachment as a tail was purely coincidental.

Bucky seemed to enjoy her nonetheless, and according to Friday, the frequency of Bucky’s night terrors had been significantly mitigated thanks to Eris’ cuddle-puddle-protocol.

So it was safe to blame the better sleep cycle on Bucky looking less bruised beneath the eyes, and not that the man seemed to be smiling more than usual since they’d gotten to talking. It wasn’t like there was anything wrong with remembering how attractive Bucky was now that he was neither sleep deprived or gaunt from lack of food. That he looked close enough to the Bucky Barnes from the forties reel that Tony’s Pavlovian response as a teenager came back with a vengeance was simply an unforeseen, but hardly regretable circumstance.

What were awkward boners between friends, right?

In any other life with any other person, he might have tried to make the situation less awkward more consensual, but what were the odds that he and Bucky would be civil let alone be friends?

Next to nothing.

It just wasn’t worth risking.

“You’re thinkin’ too hard,” Bucky interrupted in a drawl during the arm maintenance that was finally required after almost three months of bets between them.

Goddamn Shuri-Tech, Tony couldn’t help but marvel with a shake of his head.

“I’ve got a million and one things in mind, Tasty-Freeze.”

“I bet…” Tony raised a brow, and since most of their conversations seemed to start like that, he could be forgiven for expecting more. Though, Bucky only snickered. “I only mean, I couldn’t imagine; big brain like yours; doin’ all this.” He gestured vaguely around them, eyes lingering with a still-awed shine.

“Part and parcel of the Tony Stark experience; kind of makes it hard to focus on one thing at a time though.”

“You seem to be doing alright,” Bucky mused, nudging his knee against Tony’s.

“Yeah, well fine tuning is required. Outside of this lab, it’s like a hamster on a wheel that’s gone unhinged in here,” Tony remarked with a snort, gesturing vaguely at his head.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, your focus is just fine.”

“Wanna bet?” came the usual issue, and Bucky smirked gamely. “Bring it.”

Closing up the panel and setting his tools aside, Tony crossed his arms. “I bet nothing you do can do will hold my attention for longer than two minutes.”

Before Bucky could open his mouth to demand “stakes” as usual, Tony interjected with parameters, “That means no fiddling either because then that’s just a sign my attention is shot to hell. _And_ that includes not going off in tangents about science or trying to get food or literally anything else than whatever you have in mind to keep my attention.”

With a considering look, Bucky nodded in acceptance.

“The stakes,” Tony continued, then rolled his shoulders with a shrug. “I don’t know, what do you want?”

“When I win, I’ll tell you.”

“Confident,” Tony remarked with a smirk. “For a trained assasin, you’re incredibly trusting that what I’ll make you do when I win won’t be the worst thing in existence.”

“Ominous,” Bucky returned, “but, I’m a _highly_ trained assasin, remember? I can take you.”

“Can you though, babe, can you really?” Tony posed, brow lifting as he wet his lips in challenge.

Bucky’s eyes flickered for an instant, just long enough for Tony’s brain to ping in distraction of _oh – oh wow, what does that –_

Just as Bucky drawled lowly, “Any way you want me to, doll.” His eyes were stupidly blue and going darker as he dragged his lower lip across his teeth which could’ve only meant –

  _Oh. Oh shit._

 “Go on then, _James,”_ Tony began, unconsciously leaning closer, gaze lingering at his mouth. “Impress me.”

That he was bodily dragged onto Bucky’s lap was unexpected and against any of the bets Tony had earlier placed and – _holy fuck, his goddamn tongue –_

“How do you think Steve will take this?” Bucky asked the ceiling a week into their new _situation_.

“Badly,” Tony hummed. “And since it’s me, probably worse than what I’m thinking.”

“You wanna bet?”

“It’s a bet I’ll win,” he mused, a smirk already curling at the corner of his mouth.

“If you’re so sure…”

The silence hung, and Tony clicked his tongue. “Your last name says he’ll blow a gasket.”

“Yours says he’ll be so shocked he wouldn’t even react.”

He raised a brow. “Wait, we’re betting on his reaction?”

“What,” his companion mocked, “you think I was going to bet that he’d handle it well?” Fair enough, they’d already seen what _civil conversations_ between Bucky and Tony led to – that silent jaw clench could crack walnuts.

Tony pouted. “That’s mean, you tricked me.”

Fluttering his lashes, Bucky asked, “Is that the sound of you bailing, _Anthony Barnes_?”

“Not a goddamn chance; _James Stark_.”

“You’re on,” Bucky declared, turning over so he was lying across Tony’s legs, elbows braced on either side of the other man’s thighs, an obvious tent in his boxers that Bucky encouraged with a nuzzle.

“I think you mean _turned on_.”

He grunted in approval as Tony’s fingers carded through his hair before he mouthed at his still clothed cock, “Awful, truly awful.”

“Shut up and blow me.”

Bucky wiggled his brows, hooking his thumbs over the waistband of Tony’s boxers while his tongue traced his lips.  “Bet I can make you scream.”

Tony snorted. “Now that’s a bet I won’t take.”

 ---

In the end, they have to hyphenate.

**Author's Note:**

> Also, there's an angst/non-winteriron version of this prompt called Let me down slowly which you can find with the rest of my fics.  
> [Click here if you want to find out more about my work](https://everything-withered.tumblr.com/)


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